


Like Hotel California

by Lipstickcat



Category: Eerie Indiana, SCP Foundation
Genre: Advent Calendar, Gen, M/M, Post-Series, Prompt Fill, eerie advent calendar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5356310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lipstickcat/pseuds/Lipstickcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marshall has escaped Eerie and gone to college, but its not the last he will see of Eerie...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Golden Boy

Its almost easy to pretend that Eerie was an extended and weird bad dream, once Marshall finds himself back in the real world. Except that it wasn't all that bad, and seriously, if that was all a dream, Marshall must have spent most of his early teens heavily sedated. 

Still, it's easy to brush it off as misinterpretations, skewed memories and overactive imagination. When you're at college and there's cheerleaders and student unions and the college newspaper, which he's got himself a position writing columns for, all that other stuff starts to feel petty and childish. Not even the nerds walking around in pieces of LARP gear and having D and D sessions in the back of the canteen need to hear about that. Because college life for Marshall is pretty great, after having to make do with a kid six years younger than him as his best friend for a few years, he's finding himself to be something of a golden boy now, popular without having to be part of any of the clicks. Sasquatch hunting on the other hand just isn't cool. 

So he doesn't talk about it, and he forgets about it, and when he calls home, it's almost like before he moved to Eerie. He thinks about Simon, sends him a few emails, but he's busy, okay? He hooks up with a couple of cheerleaders, and still manages to hang with the nerds, he writes thoughtful articles about feminism and less thoughtful ones about why the canteen is obsessed with macaroni cheese, and he steers clear of the assignments that look like they might stray into superstition or supernatural territory. So what if his roommate plays the tuba? If that's what counts as weird around here, well, great! 

When the first thing happens, he doesn't even notice it until it's in hindsight. Just an email, spam from an address that doesn't make any sense. There's an attachment, labelled as "evidence", but the subject line is "THIS WILL BLOW YOU'RE MIND". The capslock, the bad grammar and the fact that there's nothing in the body of the email except a "-X" gives Marshall a pretty good clue this is probably porn, the kind that will infect his computer with a virus. So he hits delete with a vague sense of smugness that he beat the spambots. 

Next, weeks later, comes a text message from an unknown number:

W̞̝͝hͫ̐̈̓̄̎҉̹͈̣e͔̟̪ͤͨṙ̵̘͎̫̝̤̲ͯͯ̓ȇ̸̲̗ͮͤ̅ͬͭ͑ ̩̭̪ͮ̔a͔̻͉͖̣̦̥ͦ͗ͭ̾ͭͤ̓r̟͕̮̮͉̞̩͑ͪe͓̮ͮ͒ͦ ͥ̑̋͊̌ͧ̔y̓ͣ̊̃͒o͊҉̮̻u̥͎͋ͮ?̵ ̻͎̙͉̀̋̊B̹ͤe̪̳̳̙̙̺̻ͦ̅i̪̖̼͂ͩ̓ͧ̽ͮͯ͜n̮̮̠̼̝̞͙ͨͯ̊͋ͩ̊ġ̫ ̿͑̆͐̑̊̑͏cȟ̖̝ä̯̞̫̹̗́͛ͤͥ̓ͪ͑s̰͈͑͘ͅẹ̩̹̰̯̿͐d̖̝̽͛̋ ̜̫̀̓ͭͥ̑̓͆b̖̻̫͍̏ͭ̋̿̿̔͐y͚̟̥ͮ̆̍̐̈́́̅ ͎͍̻͐̓̆͐ͤͣaͧ͂ ̧͓̣̘̠̺͈̌̿̈́p̨͔̩̲̟̳̳̂͛ͩe̤̞͚͕ṛ̷̣̥̮̳̥̭ͥ̄̐̾́̐̌s͎̦͗̎̿̈́̈ͥ̿i͚̠̝͚̰̞̲̎ͩͭs͚̼̤͊̓ͨ̽͂́̚t̙̤̮͜ẻ͎͚n͢t̫͙͙,̦̳͖̩̖̦̠̿ͨ ̭̟̫͓̪͉͆̿u͍̻̥̹̙ͤ̍̆ģ̲̬ľ͇͚̭͇̳̊̋ͬ͊͢y̅̉͑̈́ͮ̓̽͠ ̿̅M͎͔̟̻̮̪ͤͪ̍̒͑ͩ͡u̧̩̻͓̞̤l̨̠̻͓̝̉d̫ę͇̥̰̤̮͆̍͗ͨͬr̯̖̮̪ͨͣͮ͛.̲͕̱͉̰̮̟ͨͣ̿́͋ ̜̙̩͐ͫͭ͠H̢̩͖̣̀ͬͬ͗̓͑e̽ ͓̋̓͐͆̑̎ͨw̶̬̌ͥa̐̌ͩ͆͂͊͏͈n͑̆̾̾҉̭͍̗̘̣t̪̮̟̰ͣ̄ͪ̏̅̚s͚̜̯̙͓͛̒̈́̄̑̀̈ ͕̖̩̯̮͎̺̐̀m̨̠͎͆y̪̟̬̲̣̠̳̋̄ ̰ͧ͂̃̈ͅb̸̻͓̜r̝͋͌à͕͓͊̄i̻̞̻̩̟̩̠͗̑̂͝n̟̖͖̏̒͂̅ͦ̋.̺̬͂ ̙͔̩̗͙̲̹͆̅̽̌  
̢̱̐̎̿ͯͨ̾  
͎͉̲͐͐ͥ̔̑ͩ̔  
Its a bit creepy. Marshall had no idea that phone text fonts could do that. Maybe its a glich. But he doesn't respond because that's the fast way to dickpics from some wrinckly old guy you don't know. 

Even though he deletes it off his phone, the text haunts him for a few days. Who wants who's brain? But then a rival college football team steal Marvin the Meerkat, his college's mascot and that's a big story that lasts several weeks and even stretches Marshall to undercover work, and he soon forgets about it.

Months later, and he's studying for exams when it all becomes clear. Well, not clear, increasingly muddled and foggy really, but some pieces fall together at least.

His computer pings with an email. Marshall, who's looking for any reason not to have to read his textbook for five minutes, gets up and plonks himself down in the desk chair, and taps his keyboard. The subject line is blank and the email message has the vaguely familiar "-X" sign off, but before that there's a body of text this time. 

"TELLER. I FOund yoU. there in2daYs." 

Marshall's heart rate quickens at the use of his name, the vaguely threatening promise. There's an attachment. Against all better judgement, he opens it. 

The guy in the picture appears to be standing on top of a toilet seat in a bathroom stall. It kind of looks like an airplane toilet. He's dressed a bit funky and has his phone out in front of him, clearly taking the picture in the bathroom mirror. Marshall would dismiss it as a random crazy person that somehow got his details, but he doesn't even need to spot the mark on the guy's hand to know that, yes it might be a crazy person, but it's not random. The short but grey hair on the otherwise young man tells him everything. 

Eerie is coming to find him.

***


	2. Blast from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, what started as a prompt post has now become a full blown idea. Lets see where this goes...  
> In this chapter, Marshall sees a face he would have rather not seen ever again.

The next two days were a blurry countdown that seemed to trickle through an hourglass with a hole too small for the grains of sand to fit through. Sitting in the exam hall, barely focusing on the paper in front of him, Marshall could have sworn that every time he glanced up at the clock the big hand had inched backwards instead of forwards. Was that Eerie weirdness leeching it's way into his normal, sane, college world or was it just the law of exam conditions? He didn't even know. 

He was in a fugue state walking out of that exam hall. The sun was a shimmering white light, the air too sharp and fresh after the stale recycled panic of that room. He, himself, was still suffering from an anxious feeling that both filled him and emptied him at the same time. Did he even write anything? 

"Hey you, jerkwad! Hey!" The voice startled him, even though he'd been anticipating it for the last two days. Marshall squinted into the blinding light to pinpoint where it was coming from. "You don't even have time to say 'hi' to an old buddy?" 

Marshall turned around in a full circle. Yeah, that seemed like the right way to start proceedings when Eerie steamrollered itself back into his life: Spinning around like an idiot looking for the source of the familiar voice. Then he could just click his red shoes together... 

"Up here, you moron, Teller." 

Marshall looked up into the branches of the tree, but already Dash had grown bored of looking cool up there and was swinging his way down to make a typically Dash-like entrance. Basically he was a cat, Marshall thought, both in his last life and probably also in his next. This pesky human body was just a minor inconvenience between the two. 

A small but nasty cat. The kind that encouraged you to tickle its belly and then clawed your hand to shreds without warning. 

"You might want to try saying 'hello' a bit nicer if you want my help," Marshall said with his hands on his hips.

Dash looked him up and down. "Who said anything about needing your help?"

Marshall looked down at Dash. Had he grown at all? His hair was still grey, cut short but as messy as it ever was. He had a bit of designer stubble going on and Marshall had to resist getting closer, because the shadow around his mouth and along his jaw didn't look grey like the hair on top of his head; it was dark. It was probably meant to make Dash look older than he was, Marshall supposed, but in his opinion it instead made his hair look like a dubious fashion choice.

"I don't know, maybe whoever was trying to eat your brains or whatever that text was about..." 

Dash frowned, then shook his head. 

"That was months ago."

That kind of 'don't you know anything?' dismissal deserved the silence that Marshall allowed to stretch out with no reply. People passed by doing their own thing as he stared down the shortass that he hadn't had any desire to see ever again. Dash could just fuck off back to whatever he was doing before and stay the hell away from Marshall's life. It was a good life, and he wasn't even slightly curious. 

No. Not one tiny bit.

"What did you think of the evidence?" Dash finally broke the silence. 

"What evidence?" 

Oh. There it was, the annoyed look of incredulity that Dash pulled off so well. 

"What do you mean, 'what evidence'? The stuff I emailed you!" 

"... I thought it was spam. I deleted it before I got a nasty virus. But if I'd known it was from you I still would have deleted it." 

Dash made a frustrated noise; a sigh that was caught beneath the hand he dragged down his face. 

"I thought you of all people would be interested in this stuff. Look, can we go somewhere to talk?" He turned his face up to Marshall, something a little softer showing in his expression for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Or I can just go and leave you alone." 

***

His dorm room was the most private place that Marshall could think of, at least when Carl, his roommate, wasn't there. So here he was; sitting on the end of his bed facing Dash, who was half propped on the corner of his desk, one leg outstretched and braced against Marshall's mattress. He considered telling Dash to get his shoe off the sheets, but to be honest he didn't really care and it wasn't worth stretching out the time that he'd have to entertain this jerk for by starting an argument. 

There was the dull clicking of Dash prodding at the keyboard next to him, depressing the keys at random for no actual reason because the computer wasn't currently switched on. 

"Do you still keep a diary, Teller?" Dash was murmuring, his eyes on the spacebar as he bounced his finger in a rhythm on it. 

"Just get on with it," Marshall snapped back. 

Pulling his hand away from the keys, Dash sighed. He turned to Marshall and when he made eye contact, Marshall could have sworn that he deflated a little. Or maybe he just hunched down to lean in a bit closer. 

"It would be easier if you'd looked at the files I sent you. You'd be more up to speed then. And before you ask, I deleted them after I sent them to you. I had to delete them. I was in a bit of a _situation_ and I thought they'd be safe with you."

Marshall glared. Dash glared back. 

"Where did your curiosity go, slick?"

Marshall winced and dropped his gaze to his lap. He shouldn't feel like he'd let Dash down, that he'd disappointed him. The world was one big, untrustworthy disappointment to Dash, so he had no right to act so surprised. And Marshall didn't care anyway, he had to remind himself, it wasn't as if he'd ever called Dash his friend or anything. 

The sheets rustled as Dash dropped his foot from the bed. He pulled the desk chair over a few inches and put both feet on that instead.

"So, you watch the X Files, right?" He grinned and waited for Marshall to glance up and make eye contact. "Sure you do. And I know I don't need to ask you to imagine that there's some big conspiracies and cover ups going on out there in the real world too. C'mon. I know I'm pressing your buttons here, Teller, you can't pretend you're some straight-laced zombie fratboy to me.

"I found one. I found a big one. And I wasn't looking for it; I don't go around looking for everything weird in the world, like you. I was just looking for..." Dash gestured in a way that was supposed to be dismissive, but flashed the backs of his hands at both himself and Marshall. "... some answers. But I walked in on something else by accident." 

Okay, so it was catching Marshall's interest. He still had his curiosity, he'd just been channelling it elsewhere, focusing on his studies and a thirst for knowledge, poking around at mundane issues for the college journal. But maybe he had been suppressing the thing that he really was curious about, trying to keep it at the edges of his vision. Dash was right: The X Files was a guilty pleasure to keep his cravings for investigation under control. 

"Have you heard of the SCP Foundation?" Marshall shook his head. "No. Well, you would have done if you'd looked at the files I sent you! I think SCP stands for something like 'Special Containment Procedure', something like that... Are you getting the idea already? You look like you are."

Damnit. Why was Dash hooking him in? Why did he know him so well? Marshall turned his face away and tried to focus on the bed across from his, on the poster of some busty model on the wall, but truly, all he really wanted to do was turn back and give Dash his undivided attention again. 

"Yeah, so it's some government agency? Some place they put aliens and monsters?" He tried to sound bored as he shrugged. "So what? This isn't news. Even a lot of normal folk out there believe that there are places like that. Big deal."

"The big deal is that I bumped into one of these SCP and some men in black tried to wipe my memory, and there was no way I was gonna let them take what I've got." 

That, at least, was understandable. 

"So now they're chasing you." 

Dash's shoulders raised and fell. 

"That. And I keep stumbling across more of the damn things without even trying." He laughed. That joyless sound that Marshall remembered from when they were kids. Did Dash ever laugh and mean it? "I kinda feel like you back in Eerie, like the weird just won't leave me alone." 

There was silence, just the squeak of the desk chair as Dash pushed it away, the smooth sound of him sliding off the desk. He took a few steps around Marshall, and for a moment he thought that Dash was going to leave. Instead, the teen with gray hair sat down on the long end of the bed, his back to Marshall. 

"I don't want it, but, you know, it might help me. It might lead me to some answers, somehow." 

"What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing." Dash shook his head and brushed his hands along his knees. "I don't want anything from you, Mars. I just thought you might be interested." 

He got up again and this time he did walk to the door. 

"Maybe I'll see you around, Teller."

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The SCP Foundation is borrowed from here: www.scp-wiki.net and makes for a very enjoyable and creepy way to spend an evening.


	3. Video Evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marshall gets an email...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this post at the Eerie Indiana lj community: http://eerie-indiana.livejournal.com/251103.html

It was hard not to get excited when Marshall logged on to his computer and saw that he had an email from Dash. So hard, even though he told himself ardently that he wasn't going to get involved in this thing that Dash was caught up in. He had too many other things to think about. Classes to complete. Extra curricula activities, _normal_ activities that would look good on his resume, to keep him occupied. A whole dating scene to explore. 

But something had twisted in his chest when he had seen Dash again, and that same thing twisted now. And he liked it, it was familiar and nostalgic, exciting. It was the thrill of the chase, the possibility of a mystery to explore. 

... And maybe a little bit, the realisation that even though Marshall had walked away from Eerie and tried to shake off his old life there, his impact on that place and the people in it hadn't been forgotten. Dash had turned to him when he needed help, whether he was willing to admit it or not. That stroked Marshall's ego even more than when Katie, arguably the most flexible member of the cheer squad, had asked him out on a date. 

He glanced over his shoulder before opening the QuickTime file that made up the whole of Dash's email, (no subject line, no email text; netiquette was not Dash's strong point, clearly.) His roommate wasn't there, which was good, because who knew what this video would be: Aliens, chupacabra, porn, Dash balanced on top of another airplane toilet... 

What the video actually was was a scenic but stormy view of the sea somewhere. There was no commentary from Marshall's croaky voiced friend, just the camera panning from a fixed point, right to left and back again, along the border of a cliff edge. Green-brown scrub covered the area that Dash was standing on, to both sides of him bushes and a couple of old stone shacks. In front, the grey sea, rippling waves blowing sideways in a wind that blasted the camera phone's microphone, the horizon fading into mist and another distant dark cliff. 

Marshall squinted and shook his head lightly. What was Dash showing him? Some crappy holiday video? 

There was a lighthouse at the edge of the water directly in front of Dash. Although the sky was dark, there was no obvious light on in the tower. Did people still man lighthouses? With modern navigational technology were they actually necessary? So maybe it was an abandoned, haunted lighthouse? 

White flashes fell from the sky. It was unclear whether it was heavy rain or hailstone, but they battered the surrounding rocks, and probably Dash as well, making the sound crackle in the video. Maybe a relative of Old Bob?

This would be easier to make sense of if Dash had spoken or pointed out in the email what Marshall was supposed to be looking at. 

"I'm working with amateurs..." Marshall muttered to himself as he played the video again. 

The clip was only 40 seconds long, but when nothing was happening it seemed like forever. On the fourth play over, he was losing interest and considering that he really needed to start working on an assignment before Carl came back and began his tuba practice for the night. Then, in the last few seconds of the video, he saw it. 

It was in the building to the right, in the dark, open doorway: The weird flicker of a shape just on the edge of frame as the camera panned away. Marshall replayed and froze the video. Frame 35, nothing. 36, nope. 37, there! 

It was a figure, solid, in parts. White and grey, grainy, which could have been due to the video quality, except that it seemed to be grainy all on it's own as well. 

Frame 38, and it was gone again. 

Marshall watched the whole video again, frame by frame, but the figure didn't appear anywhere else except the doorway at the end. Why didn't Dash just film the building the whole time? Why was the most important part the last thing he panned to, and why did he pan away again so quickly?

He fired off a quick email, asking that exactly. Then he watched the video several more times. Then Carl came bumbling in and pulled out his instrument, and not in the way you would expect from a hormonal teenager living away from home, but with the exact same effect of forcing Marshall to either put in a pair of earplugs or go out for a coffee for a while to escape the noise he was making. 

Coffee just made Marshall more jittery and he was virtually trembling with nervous energy by the time he returned to his dorm room. The fleeting image in the video doorway was burned into his brain as he replayed it over and over in his head. He had an email when he sat back down at his desk, but Dash's answer just pulled up more questions.

> Its a SCP. couldn;t film it directly agents would know i know. I like the memories I have now thankyouverymuch. 
> 
> -X

Marshall groaned and swore that he would teach Dash some basic punctuation when he next saw him. For now though, he had a caffeine rush and the urge to visit the college library to check the archives for any recent incidents in the vicinity of lighthouses.

***


	4. So Retro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just Dash this time... kinda. Inspired by this picture prompt: http://eerie-indiana.livejournal.com/393513.html

There was a light sheen of rain. A cold rain. And unlike the fabled rain in Spain, this was mostly falling on Dash's face. It was hard to decide if this was a good thing or not because on the one hand, it did have a soothing effect on the hot, swelling lump on his temple, on the other hand the icy fall against his skin made him wince and that didn't help so much with the throbbing headache beneath the lump.

What had he been doing? Dash closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, (but not too hard as to send more crackles of pain up into his skull), and rolled off his back and onto his side. Oh, yep, the base of his spine also made a complaint over how he'd landed so suddenly on it. 

He'd been running. Dash clenched this hand in wet long grass and weeds and dragged himself upright into a sitting position. He'd been running, and then a goddamn tree had just come out of nowhere and clotheslined him across the head with a branch. 

Or maybe he'd just not seen the tree for the forest he'd been dodging through. 

No. It was totally the tree's fault. 

Oh, and the agent in a suit that he'd been running from. Adrenaline spiked, flooding Dash's body with a rush of fear as his eyes flew open and he urgently looked around himself for menacing figures. There was no-one around though. He'd given them the slip afterall? Or had he "forgotten" something? No, surely they wouldn't have let him remember them at all if they'd wiped his memory. He'd escaped. 

Reaching for the accursed tree that had got the better of him, Dash dragged himself up onto his feet. Half bent over with his ass propped against the trunk and his hands on his thighs, Dash took a long, deep breath to try to soothe the roar of pain behind his eyes. He raised his head and looked out again into the bushes. And blinked. 

"What the hell?" 

In complete silence, several dinosaurs made their way through the undergrowth in front of him. However these weren't normal dinosaurs, (and Dash was aware just how messed up it was that he had an actual frame of reference for _normal_ dinosaurs...), these ones were transparent, all but for the neatly outlined limbs and bodies. The first thing that randomly came to mind was Pacman, which he felt he could probably blame Simon for. The unnatural colours that those reptiles were thickly outlined in put him in a nostalgic mood, remembering hanging out at the World 'O Stuff with the only two people that he maybe could have ever counted as his friends. 

Nostalgia made his head hurt more. He tried to avoid it at the best of times. 

Dash crept closer. Maybe they were a light display, like the tacky reindeer that people with homes put on their roofs at Christmas? 

_Shncrikkk_ A twig broke under Dash's foot. And the t-rex turned it's head, the lines shifting to outline the head no longer in profile but looking straight at Dash. 

Shit. No, not a light display then. Dash froze. His heart raced as he stared back through eyes that were green as leaves, like the rest of the creature's body, within the slightly glowing pink outline. His teeth tightened, clenching down on a wave of pain that stung behind his own eyes. Nausea followed. He needed to go away and lie down, and preferably not get eaten, if that was possible when the dinosaurs had no visible stomach to contain him. Dash cursed his imagination as he considered exactly what could become of pieces of meat, or pieces of him, if they did decide to eat him. It didn't help with the need to vomit. 

After a long, imaginarily graphic, moment, the t-rex seemed to decide that it hadn't heard anything, probably because it had no eardrum to be able to hear with, and turned away. Dash remained static a bit longer as he watched it join a triceratops and a thing with a dumb long neck, and slowly make their way further into the trees. 

Dash's body sagged, then his legs began to shake from a release of adrenaline. Dash operated on that chemical rush most of his life, but even he felt the effects occasionally. He wasn't going to sit down though, he couldn't, he had to get out of the forest and find somewhere safer to sleep off the spike of pain that was hammering through his temple. 

The rain was speeding up, it was just cold and wet now, nothing soothing about it at all. His clothes were sticking to his skin. He would need somewhere he could build a fire as well. Survival was always the name of the game, everything else came after. 

And yet. As he picked his way back through the undergrowth in the direction he thought he had come in, he found himself thinking of arcade machines, black cows and kids with endearing curly red hair. He thought of Marshall; the guy that he'd seen most recently in a new setting of college. He thought about bringing him here to hunt out those retro throwback dinos and dodge the mysterious men in black. 

Another thought made Dash snort: A day out in the woods, looking for weird creatures and possibly running away from trouble? Whether Teller knew it or not, that was totally his idea of a perfect date. 

Yeah, no. Better not do that...


End file.
